MarTech Interview with Jaime Romero, Vice President of Global ABM at MRP

Tell us about your role and journey into Marketing Technology. What inspired you to join MRP?

I’m currently a Global Head of Marketing and Delivery at MRP. On one side, I am responsible for all Marketing activities globally, from brand to demand, and on the other, I am responsible for global delivery of all Client Software and Marketing Services execution. This is especially important because I’m my own toughest client. This allows me to see where the gaps are and how to continue to enhance customer value. Prior to MRP, I was Head of Marketing at a Finance tech and Local Marketing software company, ultimately landing at a Marketing agency that was later acquired by MRP.

Since I wasn’t inspired to join MRP, I was definitely inspired to stay at MRP. We work really hard to develop our people. Anytime we look to recruit, Kevin Cunningham, our CEO always asks, can we promote from within. Over 75% of the people that have worked for me over the last 5 years at MRP have been promoted or moved onto new career paths that they love. That inspires me everyday to create a work environment that fosters a growth mindset.

From the time you began at MRP, how much has the Account-Based Technology for Leads and Demand evolved?

Over the years at MRP, our approach to demand has remained constant. For over 16 years, MRP has always approached Marketing on an account basis, however, with the introduction of AI-powered predictive analytics, we have been able to scale our account-based approach to include multiple channels, tactics, and messaging. Today we have evolved from a demand generation vendor to a strategic partner for our customers.

How do you identify the biggest advantages and challenges in B2B Marketing? What role does MRP play in overcoming these challenges?

Customers, always. We continue to focus on being a strategic partner with our customers. We pride ourselves at the high level of engagement and service we provide at all levels of the organization, both theirs and ours. This helps us understand problems and uncover solutions that satisfy different stakeholders. Our teams are all trained to know what makes a customer successful, both at an organizational and personal level. Once you know that, you can help identify and remove roadblocks.

Tell us more about your recent integration between MRP Prelytix and Oracle Eloqua.

The collaboration, which includes two forms of integration between MRP Prelytix and Oracle Eloqua, will enable MRP clients to trigger email marketing as a synchronized piece of their ABM strategy. Clients can use a master Eloqua instance directly connected to MRP Prelytix or connect to their own Eloqua instance. This integration offers robust, bi-directional sync that effortlessly coordinates Oracle Marketing Cloud deployments with ABM programs managed by MRP Prelytix.

How does it benefit customers?

The integration will enable customers to leverage predictive intelligence to trigger email marketing programs. Using MRP Prelytix will help customers understand an account’s pain points and active research. Marketers can use that insight to determine the timing and drive messaging. This represents a Marketing Automation revolution.

Without any ABM tactic, why is Customer Retention a big challenge for B2B Marketing brands? How do Personalization and relevant context impact retention strategies?

Without ABM, accounts can be left feeling siloed from other offerings and departments. That’s why personalized content can be such a game-changer for B2B retention. Consumers demand personalized content: they’re already getting it everywhere; Data is already being used to personalize experiences with the likes of Netflix creating bespoke choices and streaming ‘content’ seamlessly across devices and channels.

Truly personalized target account engagement starts with real-time insights and is realized when you trigger coordinated actions across delivery channels. Making this process programmatic – dynamically adjusting program content based upon these dimensions – allows for relationships to be mapped in advance and lets your ABM platform do the work in the background for you.

What is the best route map to optimize Marketing Automation for omnichannel campaigns? Which technologies maximize opportunities in this area?

Marketing Automation today needs two things. First, predictive intelligence is the trigger to decide if, when, and what to email someone. Really, it is either that or just guesses. Second, having a central hub of data you can pull from is the best route map to optimize Marketing Automation. At MRP, we combine all services into our MRP Prelytix platform for better overall outcomes. Collaborating with Oracle has helped maximize the opportunities when reaching target accounts, empowering email marketing as an integral, orchestrated component of its Account-Based Marketing programs.

Tell us about your go-to strategies to support rapid growth, lessons learned through periods of massive shift and transition.

Through hundreds of conversations and deployments, we learned that enterprise-class organizations have varied needs when it comes to utilizing existing technical infrastructure, sourcing new or even deploying some functionality on a managed service basis. Correctly prioritizing the needs of accounts so you can best serve them is a huge aspect of supporting customers through rapid growth.

It’s important to empower your team and trust them to do great work, but you should also have this guiding north star in mind when it comes to your current and future customer’s needs.

Which Marketing and Sales Automation tools and technologies do you currently use?

MRP is a company that puts our money where our mouth is. We use MRP Prelytix with Eloqua for our Marketing and Sales Automation and we gather from our internal experiences how much it positively impacts our outcomes attracting and retaining customers.

What are your predictions on the most impactful disruptions in Marketing Technology for 2019-2020?

AI will undoubtedly continue to be the most impactful trend in the marketing technology industry. As marketers continue to embrace Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, their businesses will develop further, making other aspects of their work to grow and develop too. Personalization will become even more targeted because AI informs marketers how demand units interact with different tactics and information, pushing marketers to use AI for initial predictions and then receiving feedback to execute decisions on the clients’ behalf.

With AI-powered account insights, Marketing and Sales teams will align around the customer, making the integration of AI non-negotiable. But, caveat emptor or buyer beware. Like many point solutions in the market today calling themselves ABM, there are many companies out there claiming AI and ML. It will be difficult to distinguish between good companies adding real value and those that are pulling levers in the background.

What startups in the technology industry are you watching keenly right now?

I’m looking at a few areas. CDPs in B2B is really interesting and I’m trying to figure out what that ultimately looks like. Companies like CaliberMind. I personally think what’s happening in the healthcare technology space is also fascinating. Companies like Medecision are helping bring change to an antiquated healthcare system, while CRISPR is on the cutting-edge of gene-editing, and Evoke Neuroscience, who are deploying an FDA cleared AI-powered diagnostic aid to help the primary health care provider diagnose cognitive diseases and memory loss. There’s so much potential in the space.

How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a Business Leader?

As a Head of Marketing, I’m constantly assessing and reassessing where we spend our money and how we drive more efficiency from our interactions with prospects. Marketing has traditionally been a difficult area to demonstrate ROI completely, and yet our success tends to be measured on those outcomes and efficiency. With AI-embedded software, the money spent becomes more efficient and effective while the machine assesses and delivers data to better understand the target audience.

AI brings so much opportunity to the industry and to MRP. Learning to trust the machine is necessary this day and age as a Business Leader.

How do you inspire your people to work with technology?

We are all laser-focused on our shared mission and the entire team is rallied around our long term organizational goals to deliver meaningful and measurable value to our customers.

One word that best describes how you work.

Passion – nothing replaces passion in the workplace. Whether that is for the work you do or why you do it. Passion makes you care for your work and colleagues. Passion makes you do more than what you’re supposed to do. Passion gives you that extra 20% to shine and create your own path.

What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?

From a team perspective, we use Teamwork project management. Every customer and every project runs on Teamwork. This ensures we don’t drop any balls. Personally, I love Audible. Listening and reading to books has helped me build and focus on developing a growth mindset. I’m probably reading at least a book a week.

What’s your smartest work-related shortcut or productivity hack?

Getting in early. I like to be in the office by 7 AM. That gives me nearly two hours of focused time to get ahead of the day.

What are you currently reading?

Two titles. I’m listening to Principles by Ray Dalio. It is a great book with a guide to work and life. While those are Ray Dalio’s principles, there are many that feel so natural that he just wrote them down to keep them operational. I’m also reading Ogilvy on Advertising. Hands down Marketing is a data-driven, however, customers and prospects still need to be inspired by your brand and message.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

It all starts with your audience.

Something you do better than others – the secret of your success?

I wouldn’t presume I do anything better than anyone else, but nothing replaces hard work. That ethic was instilled in me by my parents at a very young age.

Tag the one person (or more) in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read:

Tim Freestone, VP of Corporate Marketing at Fortinet

Matt Hummel, VP Marketing, Demand Generation at Thomson Reuters

Raviv Turner, CEO CaliberMind

Peter Raymond, CEO Evoke Neuroscience

Thank you, Jaime! That was fun and hope to see you back on MarTech Series soon.